I stared at him like I’d just lost my heart.
“Let’s cut to sophomore year.” The image changed to a new picture of him wearing a white shirt and a cocky smirk. “I wasn’t any better. I started drinking a lot, hung out with people who felt like me. Empty, unwanted. I partied and ran. When sophomore year started I couldn’t wait to get back to my safe place. Melanie Barton. She changed over the summer. Got taller, prettier, brighter. Clothes got baggier, too.” He grinned at me, and through my tears, so did I. “I used to think, what’s her deal? She’s got to have this banging body in those baggy jeans, right? Turns out she does, but I digress.”
Mr. Rios cleared his throat and the boys in class laughed.
“Then I realized something. She wasn’t hiding anything. She was protecting it. She was wearing what she wanted and not giving a single damn who didn’t agree. My obsession got worse. I took a picture of her every chance I got so I could see her when she wasn’t there.”
The girl in the chair across from me turned to look at me, tears in her eyes.
I kept my gaze on Dare.
My sophomore year was encapsulated on the screen, images of me flitting past the screen like a time capsule.
“Things at home got worse. Melanie got prettier. She laughed more. She took pictures too. Of things that mattered to her, unfortunately. Not me.” He licked his lips and looked down for a moment. “I remember thinking, Mel, why couldn’t you just look up? Just once? See me?” He met my eyes. “I didn’t realize how wrong I was until you actually did. You were waiting for me the way I was waiting for you. Only you didn’t know it yet.”
“But in the meantime, I was just a fifteen-year-old boy who loved a girl who never looked at him. Things became unbearable at home. School ended. Summer ripped me apart. I couldn’t wait to go back to school and see Melanie smile. But something happened.”
The image changed to a new one of him. He was older. Harder.
“Junior year happened.” The image faded to a picture of me. I wasn’t smiling at my locker. I was all alone, and my lips were turned down. Sean was gone. I looked like something turned off my light. “This is the first image I took of her on the first day of junior year. Something was missing. She wasn’t her usual self. I thought she was having a bad day. But she looked the same the next day. And the next. Something was ruining her. One day at a time. I asked around, but no one knew anything. And I couldn’t ask too many questions without becoming suspicious. So I took more pictures of her, lying in wait for her to smile again. She didn’t.”
Images moved across the screen alarmingly fast. My Junior year had gone from youth to despair. My parents’ divorce had done that to me. Their fighting, their turbulence—their shattered parts shattered me.
“Cut to senior year. My time was running out. I knew if I didn’t do something, I’d lose her. But what could I do?” He sounded frustrated thinking back to that time. “I plotted, I schemed. I did some bad things.” He looked down at his feet and then up at me. “Maisy Brooks never made her attraction to me quiet. I didn’t want to return it. She wasn’t my type. She wasn’t Mel. But she had the locker next to her. And I broke her heart to heal mine. I used her. Not my finest moment. To get as close to Mel as I could. I took less pictures, since I had the real thing close by. Mel’s smiles stopped. She didn’t even bother anymore.”
He sighed, flashing his gaze to meet mine. “And then I learned about this project. I had to do it. Do you forgive me?”
I nodded mechanically. Of course, I forgave him. Plus, Maisy didn’t mind. She was deep in Super Maisy world with Sean. They were gag-worthy and in love.
“You hated it. Being paired with me.” He grinned. “Didn’t you?”
I bobbed my head, making everyone laugh.
“I was an asshole because of it. Took my hurt out on you because you were looking love in the face and didn’t even care. She slapped me. And though that slap should have sucked, it didn’t. It was worth it. It got Mel to look past her preconceived notions, and the moment she did, she gave me something I ached for. She smiled at me. She. Smiled. At. Me.” He growled, his chest rising and falling under the weight of his admissions. “You weren’t like other girls. You were so different, I had to get to know the girl I thought I knew. Loving someone from afar isn’t the same thing as loving them up close. You were a pain in my ass, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
The image turned to the one he’d taken on the day we were assigned the project, and then side by side there was another one of me he’d taken this morning as we drove to school. I was smiling hugely at him, my hair in my face, light in my eyes. I looked so much older, like I held a secret in my eyes I never knew before.
“Not when it got me this,” he finished. “It took me four years to complete this project. Four years to get my girl. Now you know, Tom. I’ve loved you from the start, and I’ll love you to the end.”
It was so quiet in the classroom my pounding heart was the loudest sound. Everyone looked at me. The only person I saw was Dare.
I got up and went to him. I grabbed his beautiful face between my hands and then I kissed my rebel as hard and deep as I could.
“You’re turn,” he whispered. “Finish the project.”
“I love you, Darren Morre. For loving me, for holding me, for being there, for letting me scream, and fight, and break. Thank you for waiting for me.”
Dare pressed his forehead to mine, and then he smiled so huge, the cracks in my heart healed.
Thank you so incredibly much for reading The Tomboy & the Rebel.
My penname is Leeann M. Shane. I’m an author who had a story to tell and thought it would be better suited for the young-adult genre. My first love.
I write to breathe. I read to escape.
I hope to give you that every single time.
If you enjoyed reading The Tomboy & the Rebel, please consider leaving a review.
Leeann M. Shane escapes through reading and creates escape routes for others. She writes edgy, beautiful, and moving young-adult titles.
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://leeannmshane.weebly.com
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